"David Hartman is at home," said he. "He will be very learned. He is smart. But he is not so smart as you, Katy. Do you forget how you were up to him in school and he is older than you?" Katy swallowed her coffee with a mighty effort. "And Alvin Koehler was here to-day," went on Uncle Edwin. "He wants that the directors should give him the Millerstown school, now that Carpenter is no longer here. We think he should have it while he comes from Millerstown. He has made a good deal of himself. You would be surprised to see him. But you are much smarter than he, Katy!" Katy put up her left hand to steady her cup. "If he gets the school, he is going to get married," went on Uncle Edwin placidly. "It is a girl from away. I am surprised that Alvin had so much sense as to study good and then settle down and get married. He said he had such an agency in the school for hats and neckties and such things. That was how he got along. There is, I believe, a good deal more in Alvin than we thought. But you, Katy--Why, _Katy_!" Katy had risen from the table, her face deathly pale. "I have burned myself with coffee," said she. Simultaneously Uncle Edwin and Aunt Sally and little Adam pushed back their chairs. "Ach, Katy, here; take water, Katy!" "No," protested Katy, "it is not so bad as that. But I will go and lie down a little. My head hurts me, too. I am tired and it is very hot. I will go to my room." Stammering, Katy got herself to the stairway. There, having closed the door behind her, she started up the steps on hands and knees. At the top she sat down for a moment to rest before she crept across the room to her bed. Again it was an advantage to be "Bibelfest," she had once more an adequate vehicle for the expression of her woes. "I am like Job," wept poor Katy. "I am afflicted. I am a brother to jackals and a companion to ostriches." Once when Katy opened her eyes, she saw opposite her window a single, pink, sunset-tinted cloud floating high in the sky. Somehow the sight made her agony more bitter. Down in the kitchen Uncle Edwin, alarmed, confused, distressed, found himself confronted by an irate spouse. He could not remember another occasion in all their married life when his Sally had lost patience with him. "Now, pop," said she, "it is enough. You are to leave poor Katy be." CHAPTER XIV KATY PLANS HER LIFE ONCE MORE